A great leap in training
November 24, 2010
Mahmudur Rahman
Technical and vocational education and training has come a long way. Once the mere acquiring of basic skills was considered enough to address the demand for technical expertise. Times and demands have changed. But in an age when emphasis is placed on technical competencies, especially in blue-collar jobs, Bangladesh faces a challenge.
Parents, guardians and students are so wrapped up in the two general education streams of SSC and Madrasah that they do not view technical and vocational education as Read more
The black swan
November 9, 2010
Sarwar Ahmed
It was a chilly April morning when Fakhruzaman, my Bangladeshi colleague who works for Syngenta in Europe, drove me for a sightseeing tour through the idyllic English countryside near Cambridge. We stopped over for some tea and muffins in a restaurant next to a small river. White swans floated on the cold water next to the bank, waiting for wayfarers to throw titbits for them to savour. I was taken aback when I saw a couple with swans, which were black in colour. Until then, I never knew there were black swans.
According to Wikipedia, until the mid Read more
Chindia policy to boost domestic trade
October 12, 2010
Chindia policy to boost domestic trade
Kingshuk Nag
When the G7 was formed in 1976 as a major economic and political group of the seven largest industrialised nations, not even the optimistic of soothsayers would have predicted that 23 years later in Pittsburg, USA, the G20 would dethrone G8 as the primary council of wealthy nations. This shift of power to a multipolar world, which signals the gradual fall of Washington’s influence and the complementary rise of Beijing-Delhi is not without reason as the G20 comprises an astounding 85 percent of the world’s economy and over two-thirds of the world’s Read more
Emotionally yours
October 11, 2010
Sarwar Ahmed
Late at night, my mobile phone beeped with an SMS alert. I was startled and then enthused by the content: Sorry, my mom was around. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Please don’t get mad at me. Love you too.
Poor thing. She must have been in a hurry to send this text and fumbled with wrong numbers with her mother hovering around.
When it comes to business, we frown on such starry eyed displays of emotions. Business is all about being cold hearted, cool thinking and rational decision-making; there is no place for emotions.
Interestingly, it is exactly the opposite Read more
Our mothering colleagues
October 10, 2010
Mamun Rashid
In the 1970s to 80s, teaching and nursing were the only largely female professions. Things have changed. Women are now also commonly lawyers, physicians, bankers, investment analysts, journalists, economists, doctors, psychologists, consultants, college/university professors, pilots, defence officials, IT professionals and scientists.
Women have dramatically increased their numbers in professional and technical occupations for several reasons — greater educational and employment opportunities, the influence of the western mass media and the growth of Read more
No room for complacency
September 23, 2010
Zillul Hye Razi
The Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) of the European Union (EU) is a preferential trade arrangement that allows reduced or zero import duties for imports from developing countries. It is a unilateral arrangement and includes the Everything But Arms (EBA) arrangement, which grants duty and quota-free access to all goods, except arms originating in the least-developed countries (LDCs).
The EBA arrangement is applicable for an indefinite period, while regular the GSP and GSP Plus are reviewed and could be changed after a specific period Read more
One step ahead
August 30, 2010
Sarwar Ahmed
As you step out of the lift at the entrance of an outstandingly modern, crisp and clean office, you see an oil painting of a lion and a lamb lazing together. If the painting is a paradox, so is the story of Imdad Haque, a 55-year-old Bangladeshi who locked horns with his future. He has offices sprawling from New York to Moscow, Hamburg, Vienna, Ankara, Dubai, Singapore and recently in Dhaka.
Since early in life, Imdad was a go-getter, a value instilled in him by his late father. His father was an army personnel, and Imdad helping, were the first to train the youth of Read more
The hidden costs of traffic
August 22, 2010
Brendan Weston
The city’s traffic has grown increasingly crowded and chaotic for more than a decade, and is a disaster even by the standards of less developed countries (LDCs). Productivity is suffering, as workers with once-short commuting distances now make glacial progress in gridlocked daytime traffic that averages barely five miles an hour. Crowded into dilapidated, steamy, fume-belching private buses, they arrive to work tired, perspiring, short of breath and tainted by dust. Those with cars inch along, tapping their horns their cell phone out and A/C blasting, getting atrocious fuel Read more
Bridging the divide
August 19, 2010
Sarwar Ahmed
It was hot and humid with an overcast sky. As we stopped to talk to farmers about progress of rice transplantation near Soling More Bazar, at Mowna, Gazipur, the water flowing through the wayside ditch was not the usual mud colour. It was bluish-black, with a disagreeable smell.
In the midst of rice fields, how on earth did this meandering dyed wastewater flow? In the distant horizon, a manufacturing unit was visible, where the dyed waste was being dumped in the open, creating this unnatural Read more
Sub-standards and testing
August 19, 2010
BSTI reform via private partners
Habibullah N Karim
On August 5, the commerce minister and the prime minister’s economic adviser shared views with members of the Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Industry on the impediments in the path of bolstering exports to India, our largest neighbour with whom we happen to have a very hefty trade deficit.
Despite bilateral negotiations and even some unilateral trade concessions from India, our exports remain a fraction of the more than $3 billion that India annually exports to us. Does this mean we don’t have anything the Indians want? Nothing can be farther from the truth — as seen in the Read more
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